


I have passed these days by the sound of your name

by miabicicletta



Series: Lonesome Dreams [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Molly's mum was Italian, Roadtrip of grief, just go with it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-08-15 19:43:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8070217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miabicicletta/pseuds/miabicicletta
Summary: Molly, moving on. The AU where the broadcast message never happened, and Sherlock Holmes was never given a reprieve.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been working on this story for a long time. Title alludes to lyrics from [In The Wind](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45VdDx-J3_g), a song by my favorite magical realism cowboy band, about people who haunt us long after they are gone.

* * *

_**  
** _

_**June** _  
_an office in Whitehall_

_  
_

When the phone rings in the stately office, awash in the dim, gray light of a rain-dampened London afternoon, all conversation ceases. Parameters of vested negotiations go undrawn; threads of impassioned diplomatic arguments are dropped; trust-funded Oxonian and Cantabrigian heads turn. It is not the office line that trills, the one so often carrying the many worries and fears and complaints of MPs, heads of state and elected (as well as unelected) authorities the world over. No, no—It is the mobile in the breast pocket of a tall, dour-faced man who bears the weight of the world on his shoulders.

His PA frowns. _That_ phone has not run in some time.

As the British Government moves to answers, Andrea dismisses the herd of underlings, securing the room. An ear to her superior (she’d hardly be where she is without the ability to multitask), she overhears a conversation both one-sided and brief. A shadow passes across the face of Mycroft Holmes as he listens to the voice on the far end before ending the call abruptly.

Andrea raises an eyebrow.

Her superior pauses, shakes his head. The phone clatters to the desk as he leans above it, pressing both hands to its beautifully lacquered surface.

His shoulders droop. He presses two fingers against the bridge of his nose. He paces to the window that looks out over London, that global nexus of commerce and history and madness and crime. A constant buzz of frenetic energy. For a time he is utterly silent.

“Andrea,” he finally speaks, “I need to place a call to John Watson. And to...various others.”

Andrea nods. “Of course, sir.”

“My parents will need to know.” In the reflection, she can see the clench of his jaw. “The landlady, Mrs. Hudson. And the detective from Scotland Yard, I imagine. Those one would count amongst his...friends.”

“And Dr. Hooper?” Andrea’s eyebrows lift in silent question. Question, and questions.

He taps a finger against his cheek, no doubt recalling the revealing final moments between his younger brother and his pathologist.

“No,” says Mycroft Holmes after a fact. He sighs. “She is already...” he pauses, sighs. “She is already well aware.” He tips his head back, as if pleading. “God in heaven. Sherlock,” he says, an uncharacteristic timbre of emotion creeping into his voice.

Andrea places the call. She puts the line through.

And listens as Mycroft Holmes fulfills the very last duty he has ever wanted to perform.

 

  
**_Also June_** _  
an Italian hillside_

_  
_

Water splashes the rocks. A light, warm wind lifts her hair. The evening air smells of ocean salt, the low scrub and fragrant trees along the hills. Rosemary, lavender, bougainvillea. At the horizon line, riotous pink-orange clouds hover above the dark and shifting water, their eastern edges smudged like ink. Birds call. A few lone cars here and there zip along the road as it follows the winding Tyrrhenian coast. Drivers streak past in flashy rentals, heading either north along toward Genoa and gleaming coastal waters tucked against brightly colored seaside towns. To the south lies Lucca and the many fortress hill towns of the Tuscan countryside. It is a peaceful place. Restorative, and gentle. Nothing at all like London. Mad, teeming, brilliant London. She worries her fingertips against the fragile phalangeal joints of her left hand. They fall to the ground beside her head.

Molly Hooper has never felt so far from home.

Somewhere on the beach below, she can hear Julia and Alessandra playing a game. They squabble and tease, sassing and giggling with one another, the evening bright with the sounds of their laughter. John and Mary’s daughter will be a girl their age, not so long from now. Molly wonders who that little girl will laugh with, years from now when they are all living a different life.

Her heart twists.

_Mycroft is never wrong._

In town, the medieval clocktower chimes the hour. Six months, sings the campanile. Six months to the day.

Somewhere in the world, far from home, Sherlock Holmes is dead.

She leans back against the grass and gasps a breath that can’t seem to reach her lungs, staring at the vaulting gradient of pink to white gold and dark. The first pinpricks of light shimmer in the deep, truest blue. She closes her eyes, unable to face a sky he’ll never see. A falling night he’ll never wake from. Tears pool in the corners of her eyes, tumbling past her lashes down her face, falling to the dirt.

On a hill very far from England, Molly Hooper bites her lip and stifles an ache that has been building for months upon months. For years. A hurt that is dull even though it is piercing, originating from some deep, tightly focused point far below all the lies and shields and distractions she’s built for herself. Beyond her work, deeper than her friends and family, past all her relationships. It’s independent, and so terribly stubborn, that most treacherous piece of her heart.

Minutes, hours pass. The grief quells, but the hurt, the brokenness stays inside her, beside her terrible secret that won’t be hers alone much longer. Mycroft will tell them. And once they know, no one, not John nor Mary Watson; not Greg Lestrade; not the detectives he’s worked with at Scotland Yard; not Mike Stamford; not every terrified tech at Bart’s; not his mad, perfect parents; not dear Mrs Hudson; not the beating heart of London itself will be able to hide from the truth.

Because Sherlock Holmes is dead.

And nothing—not any of them—will ever be the same.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The idea is an odd one, but one that begins with Molly watching Mrs. Hudson and her grandmotherly regard for Sophia Watson.

||

_She rushed into the room, wild with panic and uncertainty. He sat against the cement wall, his hands folded, and sprang to his feet as she entered._

_“What happened? What’s going on– ” She looked to him, desperate for information._

_“Magnussen is dead," he said, straight-off, studying her face. “I killed him. It was necessary, and I do not...” He hesitated on a word. "It was the only option."_

_Her lips formed an O of surprise. Eyes wide, she stared in shock as she absorbed his words. She nodded, trusting him, but..._

_A beat passed before she regained her composure. “Sherlock,” she said with care. “Why am I here?” She held his hands between hers, imploring him to answer. Imploring him for the truth._

_“Molly– ” He stepped closer. “I am saying goodbye.”_

||

**May**  
 _London_

On the thirteenth of May, Molly Hooper places a request for personal administrative leave and arranges with HR to be back at Barts the first week of August. It’s frowned upon, of course, that kind of sabbatical, but it doesn’t stop her. Seven years, and she hasn’t taken so much as a holiday weekend in far longer than she can remember. As it happens, no one so much as bats an eye. Perhaps it is because of all those unused sick days, the overtime favors, the tidy, punctual paperwork. More likely an explanation carries a posh brolly, a posher accent than he was born to, and answers to the name Mycroft Holmes. 

She can’t bring herself to care. 

Her heart is too heavy, weighed down by the certainty of a loss that creeps closer each day. Underneath all the things that look like life—smiles and work and the involuntary drawing of breath—there’s a coldness in her bones that has nothing to do with the sleet and rain and a winter that won’t end.

||

John and Mary’s daughter had been born in February.

“Sophia,” John had said, throat choked with pride. “Means ‘wisdom.’” 

Mrs. Hudson cooed at that, pointing out how full of himself Sherlock would be when he returned.

“He will, too. Pompous git,” Greg quipped. They laughed, chatting away. Molly stood apart, holding John and Mary’s baby, holding her secret once more, and the cost it came at, which was silence. 

Sophia sniffed, curling into her.

Molly cut her teeth into the inside of her mouth, adoring the tiny girl in her arms, envying each second her friends could revel in their blissful, uplifting ignorance. Their willful, imperfect happiness.

||

She was standing outside Barts in the cold and damp, pulling on her mittens. Wettish snow drifted lazily on the wind. It seemed as tired of falling as Molly was to see it fall. Without warning, her heartbeat quickened at the suggestion of movement in the corner of her eye.

A tall reflection in the wet road, the flutter of a long dark coat, the sound of a cab door closing...

Molly spun toward it, her stomach dropping out—

The officer’s coat caught on a puff of air streaming from a ventilation grate as he double-timed it down the road. The military-cut was a only relative, not a twin. And anyway, now that she saw it fully, it had none of the dramatic, familiar _swish_. 

He passed her on the pavement. Molly let out a breath she hadn't intended to hold. Her heart was pounding. Her throat, tight, and aching. 

And like that, the blind, desperate need to just–just– _go away_ burned itself inside her head. How could she keep it up, this pretending to just go on, strolling along these streets, on these corners, in these hallways, as if everything were okay? As if it wasn't deeply, terribly _wrong_? How could she keep passing the spot where he sat at his microscope, bossing her around and begging her help? How could she begin to continue? A stream of memories whirled past to compound the loss, until it overwhelmed. Exponential, infinite. 

She had to leave. Go somewhere. Anywhere, just so long as it was somewhere as un-Sherlock Holmes as possible. A place he’d never been, that he didn't– that he _doesn’t_ know. Somewhere that wouldn’t feel the whole, awful world tip on edge from the loss of him. 

_He’s gone. He’s gone, and this time he’s not coming back,_ Molly thought. _Not ever._

When she looked up again, her decision made, the officer was gone, vanished somewhere in the rain-choked London streets.

||

The idea is an odd one, but one that begins with Mrs. Hudson and her grandmotherly regard for Sophia Watson. Molly's own grandmother is tucked inside some of her earliest memories, between bright mornings and long walks and a sunny kitchen of nice-smelling things. She remembers soft, crinkled eyes and little hands. She had died the year Molly was eight, not very after her grandfather, a man who had lived in England for more than forty years before his death and had never gone a day without speaking the language he’d grown up with.

She remembered less of him, but what few memories she has are clear in her mind—The smell of pipe smoke and a loud, booming laugh that sometimes scared her. On their mantle had been photos, faces as familiar and foreign as her mother’s. Faces she has never known. People she doesn’t really belong to. A part of her family tree that had withered and fallen away without her mother alive to nourish those roots. Molly had indulged it with a perfunctory sense of duty and idle curiosity over the years—The language courses in sixth form and a summer holiday to Rome once in her undergraduate years. Small nods, obligatory at best, that did very little to impact her stolid British identity. 

Nicolò is related in some vague, semi-distant way that doesn’t seem to bother him at all when Molly shoots off a quick Facebook message, explaining she’s his aunt Elena’s granddaughter, so the daughter of his mother’s first cousin. Which makes them second cousins? She’s planning some time abroad, can he recommend a place to stay for a few weeks? She’d like to visit, too, maybe. She’d like to know him, his family. 

_Location doesn’t really matter, just somewhere quiet. Ideas welcome! :)_ Molly writes.

A shot in the dark, she thinks, walking to the Tube that morning. She knows very little about him. He mightn't care at all. Fortunately, none of that seems to matter to Nico. 

_Molly!!! Yes!!_ Nico replies a few hours later. _We know a place!_

He attaches several photos of the Airbnb property he and his wife own. She clicks the link he sends. A new Chrome tab pops open to shows a modest little cottage on the edge of a regional park a few kilometers south of Levanto. 

_You are lucky. We rebuilt one stone wall this month. We didn't think we could rent this summer. But we finished very fast! You will understand this NEVER happens with us hahaha. I think it is FATE :) Come stay!!!_

She has to smile at her (third?) cousin’s proliferate exclamation points and smiley faces, reminded of her own cheerful tendencies. 

_We’ll show you the family house and our vineyard. A reunion!!!! My mamma can’t wait!! :)_

What hesitation she has is brief. 

“ _Certo_ ,” she hums. Of course.

||

“Italy?”

“Yeah,” Molly smiles. “Visiting some family.” 

“Really?” replies Mary, taken aback. 

“Yeah.” 

“Wouldn’ta thought,” Mary muses, considering her. 

“No?” Molly replies over the suitcase thrown open across her bed. She throws in a swimsuit, and pair of jeans. She holds up two pairs of shoes for consideration. 

"Sandals, yes. Heels, no," Mary decides. Then smirks. “Well, now that I think about it, you do have a penchant for the dramatic.” 

Molly scowls. “I do not!” 

Mary shakes her head. “Nah. Not murder, or mysteries, or handsome detectives in long, dark coats…” Mary lists. “You're right of course.” 

Molly swallows heavily, rooting a moment longer than she needs to in her chest of drawers. She tosses a balled-up t-shirt over her shoulder. “Shut up.” 

Mary cackles. “Seriously though? You're Italian?” 

“My mum. Grandparents emigrated when she was a kid.” Sunblock. Journal. Trainers. “Thought I might explore. Get to know somewhere that wasn’t...here,” she finishes lamely. 

“It’s been a long year,” Mary says, no doubt thinking of the dark, awful things that marred her first months of marriage. “Bright side, luv: By the time you’re back I’m sure his royal pain in the arse will be back, too, flitting about and harassing half of London.” 

“Right,” Molly says, nodding. She pretends to hunt around her closet, holding her jaw in place until her teeth ache.

||

_She stared at him as realization descended, terrible and clear as day, trying for words that would not form. “You don’t mean goodbye.”_

_“No.”_

_“Not ‘bye’ goodbye. You mean for good. Like you’re not coming back.” She swallowed, uncomprehending. “You mean—forever.”_

_He nodded. “Yes.”_

||

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments, thoughts, opinions, critiques and feelings welcome :)


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not that Molly is thinking about Mary, or John, or any of them. She’s not thinking about the lie they don’t know from the truth anymore than they did those terrible years before.

||

_He stood there, expression as fixated and fierce as it was when he looked at a puzzle. Or a problem. “I am so sorry, Molly Hooper.”_

_Her head spun. She was off-axis. The gravity had gone out of the room. She swayed a little, unable to find her balance as she stepped back, absorbing it all: Walls and doors and the agents outside. The handcuffs. The enclosure. The captivity._

_It couldn't be... This it could not..._

_“What do you mean?” she managed. "For what?"_

_“Taking too long,” Sherlock said. He reached for her shoulders. To steady her, she thought._

_Instead, he pulled her into his arms and held her like something precious._

||

  
It should be weird and awkward. She’s never met this person, not once, and she’s forever tripping through introductions, making strange comments and getting things bungled in an earnest but awkward way and God, please, if for once, just…

At arrivals, Molly looks out across the sea of unfamiliar faces. There, suddenly, across the linoleum and concrete is Nico, waving both hands a bit awkwardly himself. He grins, wholly unselfconscious, before pulling her into a bear hug as though it had never occurred to him not to. It should be weird.

“Ciao, Molly Hooper,” Nico beams when he’s set her down.

Somehow, it is not weird at all.

“Ciao, Nico Serafini,” Molly says, her face a mirror of his own.

||

Nico is exuberant and wry. Five or six years older than she is, he manages a small organic vineyard, and is bringing a small plot of his own land back to cultivation. Behind sunglasses, he guides a little red Audi down windy coastal roads. There’s a sea breeze. On her right, the blue-blue water is white with bits of chop. 

_“Allora, perché l'Italia? Bisogno di una vacanza?”_

Molly hasn't spoken regular Italian since she was very small, and it comes back to her painfully. And poorly. The words catch in her mouth, now unfamiliar rhythms tripping unprettily off her tongue. She says as much to Nico, but only he laughs, switching between very good English and a slow, accommodating dialect. 

“Nah. You remember more than you think. It’s a muscle, language. Few weeks, it’ll be like you grew up here.” 

“Not so sure about that,” she replies. 

He waves her off. 

“Thank you.” She looks out the window. “You’ve been so helpful! I’m–” 

Late afternoon sunshine glimmers across the water. Far off, she spies a lone sailboat, it’s white sail snaring the wind. To where? 

“-looking forward to this,” she says, and tries to truly mean it.

Nico glances over, something she can’t quite name in his expression. He nods in agreement, as the corner of his mouth ticks up. “Me, too.”

||

Nico steers the little red Audi off the main road. They climb up into the coastal hills for a while. A long gravel path leads to a house of red-orange stucco and gray stones. A low wall winds along the hillside, crumbling in places, overrun by bright pink and purple flowers.

“My wife Nat is out with the kiddos,” Nico explains, as the engine cuts out. He gives her a semi-apologetic look. “You’ll hear them soon enough.” 

He points out the garden and the orchard, gestures to a narrow dusty path cutting down the hill. “To the beach,” he points out. “If you want to stretch your legs.” 

She nods, feeling both weary and restless. 

Her suitcase wheels _click click click_ on the flagstones as Nico leads her down to the cottage she's rented out for the next few weeks. It’s by no means extravagant, but after a decade of small, dark flatshares in and around central London, it feels lavish and old world. A few rooms of aged wood, bright stucco, long light pouring in through large windows. A desk looks out over the hills and from the kitchen is a partial ocean view. Brass taps sit above a large ceramic sink and aside a long wood-topped counter. Braids of garlic, chilis and herbs rest beside shiny copper and cast iron pots, careworn with use. 

A trio of wine bottles sit next to a little handwritten note. _Benvenuto!_

Perfection. Or something near to it. She opens her mouth to say this. Nico’s phone trills.

He glances at it, and winces. He holds out his hands in the universal sign for _Fucking work._

She nods, understanding. He pecks her cheeks quickly before he darts back to the main house. “I’ll let you settle. Natalie put some things in the fridge. Come up later, or tomorrow?” Nico implores. “Mamma will be here this week. She was thrilled to hear you would be visiting. Truly.” 

He raises the phone to his ear as he waves, running off.

And then, once again, Molly is alone.

||

Molly Hooper is a scientist. She is a rational creature, given to order and method. She is a believer in consulting experts. She is a maker of plans. There is a purpose to her time here, she has decided. This is not an escape from troubles. It is research, the study that must come before the trials.

Everything she has brought for this project sits in an app on her tablet. Deliberately so. She doesn’t want anyone to find her halfway through something so telling as _A Grief Observed_. She doesn’t want questions, even from strangers. What answers could she begin to give? 

Soon. But not today. She is not ready to confront the finality of what’s ahead. She places the tablet on the little desk overlooking the hills. 

Evening descends. Clouds make art of the sky. She follows the dusty sloping path to the ocean. She puts her toes in the water. She writes her name in the sand. 

Gulls dive and call. Faint chords of strummy guitar music drift from a restaurant somewhere down along the coast. Cars _whoosh_ along the road above the slip of sandy beach between rocks. 

Molly watches a family making their way back to the stairs at the foot of the trail she’s come from. A small boy holds out his hand, reaching toward the water, wanting one more moment... His father scoops him up. They disappear out of sight, beyond the stone stairs. 

Molly looks out over the ocean once more. She tries not to think. She tries only to listen, and to breathe, to get lost in the hypnotic rush of air and water. 

_So blue_ , she thinks.

She closes her eyes against the unbearable beauty. 

When she opens them again, the waves have washed her name away, leaving nothing left behind.

||

She walks up to the house in the morning. One eyes stings, irritated by a smidge of SPF50 concealer, gingerly applied.

The garden is neat lines of vegetables: tomato plants, peppers, beautiful flowering stalks of beans. Patches of strong morning sun splash across the stone patio floor, dappling through a leafy overhanging hanging trellis. Thin green vines sway from the lattice. Tools and garden equipment are scattered here and there. A soccer ball, a pink bike, a frisbee. Tearing a tiny basil leaf from a potted plant, she breathes the lush, botanical brightness of it in, and the childhood memories that come with it. 

Molly raps on the sliding glass door, where Nico waves her into a scene of mild chaos. 

“Paolo, you finished the Nutella!” a little girl with curly, white-blonde hair accuses. 

“Shoulda gotten up first,” is the offending Paolo’s smug reply. 

“I wanted some!” the girl sulks. 

A blonde woman shouts above them both. “Oi! No shouting!” 

“You ever get tired of peace and quiet,” Nico says with a sigh, “take a walk up here.  
“ _Bestie_ , pretend for our guest you’re sweet and adorable for five minutes, eh?” 

The little blonde girl chirps, “I _am_ adorable.” 

“Sometimes,” Nico replies, bending down to scooping her up. She grins at him, and twiddles her fingers at Molly. “Hi.” 

“This is Julia,” Nico introduces. He gestures to a second, slightly older girl at the table. “And Alessandra—Ali. And Paolo, our oldest.” 

“Hi,” Molly replies. “I’m your dad’s cousin. Sort of. Ish.” 

“Yah. We heard,” Ali replies, considering her over Nutella toast. She has a curious little accent that is explained a moment later by her mother.

“Natalie, hi,” the blonde woman pulls her into a hug. “Great to have you here, Molly! Couldn’ta timed it better, eh?” Her long blonde hair, bronze skin and twangy accent gives her the aura of a smiley, bubbly surfer girl. 

“Yeah,” is all Molly can think to say. 

Nico’s mobile rings. He looks at it grimly, and retreats into the house, asking the caller straight off for numbers without so much as a _Ciao_. 

Natalie sighs a smile, turning to Molly with a shrug. “Vineyard manager. Business.” She swings her littlest daughter’s hand and says, “Julesy-bean, shall we show Molly around?” 

Julia snags Molly by other hand. The pair of them lead her out along the patio to terraced steps leading through the trees. As they climb up through the orchard, Julia chatters in a mix of quick Italian and amusing English. Natalie half-rolls her eyes, and half-grins at the slipping from one language to another, and offers the occasional English equivalent, like a human Google Translate. 

At the top of the stairs, the path falls away, down green hills to swathes of wide, blue ocean. The light is blinding. 

“Killer view, eh?” Natalie says, reading her mind. 

Molly holds a hand over her eyes. “Bet you’d never get tired of it.” 

“No,” Natalie answers. “You really don’t. Makes up for the well tests and land surveys and scorpions—all the other exciting bits of home ownership not in the guidebook!” 

Below, Molly hears Ali shouts something at Paolo, and Nico holler at them both. 

Natalie tugs her hair into a messy bun as they descend, unperturbed by bickering or the growing heat, or Molly’s own reserved presence. She senses that Natalie is the kind of tremendously laid back woman Molly has never managed to make close friends with. Her own quiet, occasionally anxious energy always awkward by comparison. 

“Nico says you speak very good Italian,” Natalie says, not in English this time. 

“He exaggerates,” Molly answers, reaching for the word. “But I try.” 

On the patio, Paolo dutifully offers her coffee. He is sour in a tempered, obliging, teenage way, but smiles shyly when Molly thanks him clumsily. Natalie says something quickly, and he scampers off with a roll of his eyes. 

“Teenagers,” she sighs. “Same the world over.” 

“You’re from...” Molly ventures. “New Zealand?” 

“Right on!” Natalie grins.

“Did you meet Nico here, or in...?” 

“Neither here nor there. Folks ran a vineyard in Marlborough, South Island, yanno? Got me interested in viticulture when I was in at uni. Did my degree there—biochem—but I wanted to travel, see some Old World plots. Lots of fanciful ideas. Young and reckless, right?” 

Molly offers an autopilot smile. She doesn’t think she’s ever been that carefree. Far from difficult, maybe, but so much of her life has always been defined by other people—her mother’s absence, her father’s illness. Then, after his death, dominated by books and courses and exams. There were pubs and pints, and whirlwind little adventures slotted between terms and holidays and training. But nothing like the airy life of adventure Natalie describes. She’s easily in her early forties, maybe older, but exudes a youthfulness unlike any that Molly has ever known. 

“Met Nico at a conference in Santa Barbara,” Natalie explains. “He told me to look him up if I ever made it over here.” She gives him a cheeky side-grin that says so much without saying anything at all. “So I did.” 

“She couldn’t resist my charms,” Nico says, wry. He rejoin them sans mobile. 

“Right. Charm,” Natalie teases, the ‘r’ vanishing in her wily commonwealth accent. “That was it.” 

Their banter is gentle, but a little not. She’s reminded of friends who’ve had years to see the best and worst of one another, who have learned how to put an honest truth into a joke and to sweeten the bite. Krina and Billy; John and Mary. 

Shrieks erupt again from the yard. Ali and Paolo seem to be waging war. 

“Welcome to the madhouse,” Natalie sighs. “If you’re running for the hills in a week, I won’t blame you.” 

“I think I’ll survive,” Molly replies.

||

Time opens up in the way it never did in London. Not with labs and PMs and interns; reports; chem panels; papers. Not with rush hour on the Tube and the maddening irregularity of the Northern Line, and obstacle courses in the rain-slick pavement of Chalk Farm.

She walks, and drinks strong espresso in seashore cafes. She finally steels herself to contemplate the books on her tablet. She found them in a Guardian article— _Top Ten Books on Grief_ , or something. They seemed like maps, at the time. A path through the terrible unknown. The author had such good things to say about this one; had such warm praise for the writer of another. 

She looks at the titles on her screen and wonders about the person who wrote that Guardian article. If they had a reason to read all those books, or if it was just an assignment. 

She wonders what, if anything, they learned.

||

Maybe it’s the time, or maybe she’s just too tired of being in her own head, but for all their differences, Molly finds Natalie’s breezy confidence steadying. Calming. She’s smart and savvy, and a bit wicked in a good way.

Like Meena, a bit. Even more like Mary. 

Not that Molly is thinking about Mary, or John, or any of them. She’s not thinking about the lie they don’t know from the truth anymore than they did those terrible years before. She’s not thinking about London, or ruthless irony, or how for three days the tablet has remained sitting on her desk, untouched. 

Distractions appear: seaside trails. A day at Nico’s vineyard. A farmer’s market. She’s trading recipes with Natalie over heaps of local veg when one of the market organizers starts chatting them up. He’s _indecently_ young, and utterly shameless in his attempts to edge in on their conversation. What is at first a shock of amusement becomes irritating. Molly is about to tell him off when a customer taps his shoulder and launches into a rapid-fire critique of some thing or another. 

“That was weird,” Molly says, ducking away with Natalie, still vaguely annoyed.

“That, babe–” Natalie shrugs. “–was _flirting_. With you, mostly, I might add.” 

Molly doesn’t quite buy it. “I think he was just trying to sell something.” 

“You bet he was. _His aubergine_!” Natalie cackles, dissolving into laughter at her own terrible joke, and not caring a whit that it had been terrible. After a beat, Molly gives in and laughs, too. 

That night, she lays in bed. She touches her lips, and remembers. 

_Only you, Molly Hooper._

_Only you._

||

She wants to keep putting it off, but when the next morning dawns to a flat, storm-gray sky, the sunny holiday idle is broken, and she knows she cannot delay forever. Molly traces the edge of an empty espresso cup. She stands at the sink, a cool breeze blowing in, sending goosebumps across her skin. Time is ticking on.

“Okay,” Molly says. “Okay.” 

She curls into a chair, a mug of tea in hand. She opens her book, and begins. 

_The Year of Magical Thinking_ , she reads. A memoir by Joan Didion. 

(Just reading it feels like admitting something. A victory, or a loss.)

Joan, Molly reads, is an author of books and novels and essays. She has written everywhere, reported stories around the world, won numerous awards and accolades for her brilliance, and her art. None of this helped Joan when her adult daughter became ill and fell into a coma. None of this helped her when her husband suddenly died amid the ordeal. None of this helped her when, later, their daughter died, too. Joan shares this with terrible clarity; each page a journey toward an ending Molly already knows. Wanting to shut it off and do anything else, there is the magnetic pull to a brutal familiar that keeps her going. 

But it is not without heart. 

Empathetic, but pragmatic, Joan says: _We all survive more than we think we can._

Sensible and action-oriented Joan says: _I wanted to get the tears out of the way so I could act sensibly._

Joan is experienced with her grief. She has weighed it carefully, and with consideration. She is measured and exact with her description, which Molly appreciates. Her own is so overwhelming, it feels without perspective, when precision has always something she has valued. She holds to the authority in Joan’s words. She clings to the hope writ invisible.

She clenches a fist against her stomach. She worries her fingers, over and over and over. 

_I know why we try to keep the dead alive,_ Joan writes. _We try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us. I also know that if we are to live ourselves there comes a point at which we must—_

Molly wipes at her eyes for all she cannot see.

_—there comes a point at which we must relinquish the dead._

She presses her palm to her mouth until the trembling stops. Until the ache in her throat abates. Others do not. 

_We must let them go, keep them dead._

For a long time, there is no sound but the call of birds, the wind, the far-off echo of cars or scooters roaring past.

It is nearly dark by the time she finishes. She turns her tablet off and lays in the shadow-swallowing darkness. A weight presses the breath from her chest as the night drifts in, and the night drifts out. 

In the cool brightness of early morning comes the answer to a question. 

She is not ready to let Sherlock Holmes be dead.

||

Paolo raps at the door the next evening. Molly hasn’t seen him for a few days.

“You want to take a walk?” he asks. It’s cute, the formality of his accent, the rhythm of his words. 

“Sure.” Molly grabs her trainers and steps out into the golden-hour orchard. 

The air is warm and dry on the hills, which are still warm with the lingering heat of the day. No wind. Clear skies. 

“You ever find anything weird inside someone?” Paolo asks, apropos of being thirteen and somewhat fascinated with what he has learned she does for a living. He bounces a tennis ball along the road as they walk.

Ruling out a few sex games gone wrong, she thinks about it. “Once, I had body of a man who had swallowed all these capsules that had been filled with drugs.”

“For smuggling?” Paolo asks. His tennis ball _thwocks_ the pavement.

“Yeah. It was bad. One of the containers burst and he overdosed.” 

_How dare you betray the love of your friends!_

She folds her arms across her chest. Is this appropriate to tell a thirteen year old? “Probably needed money, the police thought. From the tissue samples we took, it looked like he wasn’t a user. He probably hadn’t ever done anything like that before.” 

_Say you’re sorry!_

She swims a moment in the tidal rush of memory, lost in the swell until Paolo says something she doesn’t catch. Molly looks up. “What?” 

He repeats himself, but slower, and with explanation. “Just meant that’s really awful. And sad.” 

“Yeah. Good thing your English is good, huh?” she says in her not excellent Italian. “Otherwise you'd miss out on my cheerful stories.” 

“YouTube,” Paolo answers, as if an English-speaking mother wasn’t enough. “Smosh. PewDiePie. Vlogbros. And not all stories are happy ones.” 

His expression darkens a little. He looks away.

She’s about to ask him more when Paolo abruptly turns at the sound of something. He peels off to the side of the path and waves both arms, lets out a loud holler. 

On an outcropping of rock below them, above the splashing water, a group of kids are climbing along a steep, rocky path. Hearing Paolo shout, they turn, hollering and waving back. 

“Friends?” 

“Yeah,” he grins at her, then shouts something about them being cowards. 

“What are they doing?” Molly asks. 

Muffled curses and taunting cries carry back across the distance. He chucks his tennis ball down toward them. It arcs out wider, over the water. One of the boys goes running toward the edge of the cliff, arm outstretched— _jumps!_ —and just misses catching the ball mid-air. 

“It’s a thing we do,” Paolo answers. “The water is very deep. As long as you jump far enough out, s’okay.” 

Molly and Paolo stand by the hillside, watching. Along the coast, the lights sparkle as inky-silhouettes throw themselves into the sea, one by one by one.

||

_“Why are you saying this? Sherlock, what’s happening?”_

_“I’ve an assignment. My brother says it will be my last. Mycroft is...never wrong.”_

_“What? I don’t understand.” She blinked. “I-I don’t—Sherlock!”_

_“It would have been you,” he said, studying her face. “It could only have been you.” His voice, already low, caught on the small words. He swallowed, clearly affected by what he was trying to say._

_Eyes wide and struck dumb, Molly could not move. Could not fathom the words._

_“Only you, Molly Hooper," said Sherlock Holmes. "And I have never deserved it.”_

||

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Serafini, of course, means “seraphim.” So “angels,” basically. Italian speakers, apologies for massacring any expressions here. Been a while since _ho fatto practica_. 
> 
> _The Year of Magical Thinking_ is a brilliant and wrenching read. I highly recommend.


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world as we perceive it is nothing like how the world actually is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my lovey **[AsteraceaeBlue](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AsteraceaeBlue/pseuds/AsteraceaeBlue)** for her eagle eyes on this. I made a few more changes after she reviewed, so surely all errors and typos are my fault. End is near, folks.

||

 

_“No.”_

_“I need you to know. It won’t be like before.”_

_“No.” She shook her head. Insisted, “I don’t believe you.”_

_“Believe Mycroft. He is never wrong.”_

_“You’re always right, you say.”_

_He touched her hand. “I’m really not.”_

||

 

On display in the Museo Galileo, the former _Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza_ , a stone’s throw from _Ponte Vecchio_ and in the shadow of _Gli Uffizi_ , are set of objects unlike any other in the world-famous collection of art, history and medieval arcana. Passersby tend to point, and then grimace with a shudder, moving swiftly away to more palatable displays. Most people prefer the dust of history over the evidence of human frailty, and the consequences of time.

 

In a glass case, ornate, thin with age, surrounded by an airtight capsule are two human fingers.

 

Molly grins. _A scientist’s remains treated like the relic of a saint. God!_ The commentary bubbles up, unbidden, delivered in an imagined voice complete with ironic regard and dismissive tones. Agony. She snorts the most indelicate giggle, doing her best to hide her laughter. The dour, middle-aged attendant glares.

 

She might be losing her mind. 

 

Days spread out, run together. One narrow, cobblestoned street recalls ten others, the hour, the day, the week before. Molly explores by rote, following maps as if following a path. Sees sights, as if working her way through a list. Distractions are small at best. 

 

Cobblestones and red Tuscan dirt lead back to the coast over hot, sun-soaked days. A cute guy in Siena winks at her.

 

May slips into June.

 

She gets complimented once.

 

Twice.

 

Three, four, five times. These Italian men—boys—they flirt like they breathe. In the depth of it all, it's hard not to feel seen. Admired, even. It’s nice. 

 

(It isn’t nice at all.)

 

||

 

She finishes one book. Begins another.

 

If Joan felt like a wise aunt, a family friend with a lifetime of wisdom to dispel, then Cheryl is more like a savvy older sister. Something of a hippie, but an encyclopedia of compassion, nonetheless. It is not difficult to imagine her words as spoken in Mary’s voice, or Meena’s, or even Natalie’s, though they haven’t known each other very long. Cheryl's book covers more ground than grief alone, but it cases a spell. Each essay hides something useful. 

 

Cheryl says: _Accept that this experience taught you something you didn't want to know. Accept that sorrow and strife are part of even a joyful life. Accept that it's going to take a long time for you to get that monster out of your chest. Accept that someday what pains you now will surely pain you less._

 

Cheryl says: _A terrible thing happened to you, but you mustn't let it define your life._

 

Cheryl says: _There are some things you can’t understand yet. Your life will be a great and continuous unfolding._

 

Will it?

 

||

 

Signage, maps and local color are nothing to chatting with Paolo, Ali and Julia, who bring Molly’s half-forgotten vocabulary up to speed in what feels like record time. The many days she imagined spending with books and walks, are still spent with books and walks, but also with sassy bilingual _bambini_. Julia is little enough that she doesn’t notice the reflexive move from one language to another. It makes for interesting “conversations.” Ali is more demonstrative, and makes Molly watch videos of her favorite Italian YouTube personalities, then laughs maniacally when Molly translates things wrong. As if being told off by an arrogant consulting detective for years hadn’t taught her humility enough…

 

 _“Qual e la parola para le sprazze?”_ she asks one evening sitting around the table out on Nico and Natalie’s patio. _“Diciamo “firefly” en inglese.”_ She leans a head in hand, watching the wide tip of the world. Pink skies become blue dusk.

 

“Lucciole,” Julia says. She kneels on a chair behind her, and winds braids in Molly’s hair. “Fi-yar-fly.”

 

“ _Lucciole_ ,” Molly repeats. They spark into existence, then out again.

 

Paolo reminds her of the little boy at John and Mary’s wedding. She doesn’t know too many eleven-year-olds, but he seems as enthralled by dead bodies as he does football and video games. He sucks down ice lollies while texting (somewhat) gory details to his friends. “Cutting up dead people. _Pazzo_ …Did you ever see any murders? Or _suicides_?”

 

_...I think I’m going to die…_

 

Her smile falters.

 

_SUICIDE OF FAKE GENIUS_

 

Memories.

 

_Magnussen is dead. I killed him._

 

“Hey!” Natalie interjects from across the table, saying something Molly doesn’t quite catch. The gist of it translates with body language. _Enough, okay?_

 

Paolo slinks away from the table with his phone, though Molly imagines their conversations are far from over.

 

“You know, Stefano, our great grandpapa,” Nico says from the kitchen, where he is drying plates. “He was an amazing butcher. You get it from him, I think.”

 

Molly almost spits out her wine.

 

Nico shakes with laughter.

||

 

Mary Skypes her one day. “Ahhh! Bella!” she cries, affecting a terrible accent. “Howzit going, _principessa_? Tell me you’ve taken some hot Latin lover.” She looks peaky and tired, new mum that she is. “C’mon, I want all the dirty bits. _Dish_.”

 

Molly thinks about the cute guy at the Saturday market, and the one who leads boats of tourists around. The biologist at Nico’s vineyard. The blissfully attractive guys playing volleyball and football in the sand. The guy in Siena. The gentlemen in Florence. All handsome, willing distractions. And she, undistracted by any of them.

 

“Oh, only a dozen or so,” Molly says, facetious. “You know me.”

 

Mary’s mouth turns up, though her smile is odd. “I do, luv,” she says, sounding sad. “That’s what worries me.”

 

||

 

Cheryl says: _My mother's last word to me clanks inside me like an iron bell that someone beats at dinnertime: love, love, love, love, love_.

 

Cheryl says: _Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you'll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you'll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go._

_Acceptance is a small, quiet room_.

 

Cheryl says: _It is impossible for you to go on as you were before, so you must go on as you never have_.

 

_Only you, Molly Hooper._

||

 

“You’re a little thief!” Paolo rages at Ali.

 

Ali screeches and throws a shoe at his head, shouting back.

 

“Hey hey hey!” Nico shouts, wading into the scene. He hold one back, the other lashes out. " _BASTA!_ " 

 

Accusations are thrown back and forth. Tears are shed. Mortal enemies are made for the next hour. 

 

Nico thunks his head against the wall once both have been sent to their rooms, _senza_ tablets and phones. “Sorry,” he says, running a hand down his face. “Kids. Monsters half the time.”

 

Molly offers a sympathetic smile. She steps through the door, wandering in from her end of day hike, as has become their custom. “Like you said. They fight.” She shrugs. _Don’t worry about it_.

 

“They don’t get along much.” Nico sits heavily beside her. “Not really.”

 

“They’re kids. They might grow out of it.”

 

“Sure. And tomorrow I might find a winning lottery ticket in my pocket.” Nico runs a hand through his hair. “No point in wondering, though. Just have to see how it turns out in the end. You and me—what do we know about siblings?”

 

Molly thinks of those she does know. Old grief, older bonds, and love that went acknowledged only in deeds, never in words.  _Mycroft is never wrong._

 

“You’d be surprised,” she wants to say, but does not.

 

||

 

It’s late afternoon, early evening by the time she returns from the trail along the coast. She likes walking by the sea. Likes the heat and dust and cool salt breeze of it. The spray, the rocks, the wild flowers. The trek makes her feel stronger, too. Not a steep climb, but a challenge. It feels like she’s moving. Toward what…Anyway, it’s a habit. A routine.

 

Around her, _lucciole sfarfallio in the colline_.

 

Molly steps into the cottage so quickly, she almost collides with the person standing in the doorway. Her pulse races. It’s been a long time since someone invaded her space.

 

The shadow is a woman. A woman who is much older, and even smaller than Molly. Her large eyes go wide, brows shooting up as she studies Molly’s face. She holds her hands out and leans in close, looking a bit afraid. She speaks so fast, Molly can’t make out the words. “— _un fantasma_.”

 

“Um, ‘ _scusi_ ,” Molly shakes her head. “Sorry, I don’t understand.”

 

There’s a long pause. Then the woman composes herself, pulls her shoulders back. “I’m sorry—For a moment I thought I was seeing a ghost. I wanted to come earlier, but...things…” She waves a hand at the unexplained delay, shakes her head.

 

Molly offers a timid, “Liliana?”

 

She’s so tiny. Shorter even than Molly. “I am. And You are Elena’s little girl. Oh, let me look at you, _ragazza_.”

 

Aunt Liliana smiles. When she does, just like her son, her whole face cracks with joy.

 

||

 

They sit in the kitchen over cups of wine and cutting boards, an array of greens and ingredients spread out before them.

 

Liliana has brown eyes and the kind of regal silver hair that looks beautiful and proud. Though she is small, she is quick, sweet, clever, and, Molly quickly observes, exceedingly _bossy_. “Yah, _il coltello. Tagliare questi_.” Molly follows suit, smiling to herself at the familiarity. The cottage kitchen is not a lab, but it comes with an invading dictator of it's own.

 

“She looked like you, your mamma.” Under Liliana’s knife, green leaves bisect in small rows. The fresh, botanical scent is bright and invigorating. Molly tosses them into her mortar with pine nuts and oil. “She loved summers here, when she was a girl,” Liliana says. “We both did. I cried for days and days and days after my aunt and uncle took her away. To England! So far. So cold. We wrote letters for _years_.”

 

“You did?”

 

“Yes,” Liliana pauses, eyes far away and unfocused. She resumes. “And then we grew up. Our letters stopped. We weren’t girls anymore, trading dreams and stories. At her wedding, though, she was so happy.” She does not stop moving, does not pause. She keeps herself busy.  “That was the last time I saw her.”

 

“What was she like?”

 

“Oh, she was clever. Helpful. Kind. Again, much like you,” Liliana laughs, a sound not purely amusement, but tinged with other sentiments. “She was teeny, like you, like me— _passerini_. But oh! That temper. Elena would stomp her feet and the cats would run and hide. Her shouting would send whole flocks of birds flying away. She could be a beast, sometimes.”

 

Molly’s mouth quirks. “Maybe not so similar.”

 

“Nico told me about you. Spending time with the kids, with Natalie. But on your own, so much. Alone. He sees this.”

 

Molly says nothing. Her cheeks flush.

 

“I think it is good you are here. But why, _passerina_?”

 

Molly frowns. How to even _begin_?

 

“ _Mi sento_ –” She reaches for the right word, brow pinching with the effort, the confusion of so many unspoken emotions. “– _affogato_.” _I feel drowned_.

 

“I lost...a friend. Someone I cared about very much. He died, and I needed to get away from all those old places where I could still feel him. Places that he’d never come back to.”

 

Liliana gives her a contemplative look. “Love can do that. Drown, with the past.”

 

She places a hand between Molly’s shoulder blades, letting the silence settle, comfortably, a drawn-out quiet, the break between waves.

 

Molly does not reply, or rebut, or correct. Her silence is answer enough.

 

||

 

June twelfth dawns. Six months.

 

Six months to the day since Sherlock Holmes was sent to his exile and to his death. Molly does little. She sleeps late, and when she cannot sleep any more, she lies in bed, unmoving. 

 

“Mo-lee,” Julia pleads. “Come to the beach. There are waves and BIG fishes and we can eat honey gelato on the rocks.” She smiles brightly, all big soft eyes and wild curls that defy her barrettes with gusto. It’s hell, pretending. Julia is just a little girl, asking about the beach and fish and ice cream.

 

Molly strokes her hair, tugging at one errant, curling lock. “Not today, chicky,” she says. Her voice is hoarse from little rest. “I don’t feel so good. Tomorrow, maybe?”

 

“Ho-kay,” Julia chirps, kissing her forehead and patting her cheek. “Feel better, Mo-lee.”

 

It’s morose and morbid, how shamelessly self-indulgent she is in her grief. She doesn’t care. She wants to get it out. Cry every tear she can. And in a few weeks, she’ll return to London and live the rest of her small, quiet life out. The world will go on. 

 

_Mycroft is never wrong_ , she mouths, unable to bring herself to move.

 

||

 

At dusk she pulls open the door, letting fresh air blow over her face, dizzied by the force of it. 

 

The sun glints low, hatefully long, gorgeous light through the trees along the seaside path. Down on the beach, a group of teenagers make irritatingly carefree noises. Laughing, joking, living. She wants to shout at them. How dare they tell jokes. How dare they laugh. How?

 

Stupid. She turns away, knowing the futility, and the selfishness of it. The world does not stop for sadness. Not for the people—loved or unloved—who came through her morgue. It did not stop for her parents. It did not stop for Sherlock Holmes.

 

Water strikes the rocks below.

 

_It is impossible for you to go on as you were before_.

 

She places her bare feet against the edge of the cliff. Looks down. The height of a building. Maybe more. What’s there to fear?

 

_You must go on as you never have_.

 

She turns, and takes a step, then another, and another. Away from the edge. A part of her life is over. A part of her life is opening. What to do with it. What to make of it?

 

_So brave, Molly Hooper._

 

_As you never were before_ , Molly thinks.

 

She turns. She runs. She jumps.

 

||

 

Freefall. A moment like stasis, and yet not static at all. Just the opposite, in fact.

 

The world as we perceive it is nothing like how the world actually is.

 

The waves crash, and gulls screech and the air screaming is in her ears like the roar of an engine, carrying her fast in her fall, and as she stares at the shifting sky in the inky sea, lost somewhere in the endless rush comes something that almost sounds like her name.

 

||

 

_He cupped her jaw, kissed her forehead. Her heart lurched. She scratched at the fabric of his shirt, feeling the warmth of him beneath it. The beat of his heart. How could this be happening?_

_She looked up in the moment just before his lips touched hers—a pure, perfect, wide-blue and forever moment the likes of which she had never, not once, felt before. Her eyes closed._

_The door opened._

_The guards pulled her back. No! She ducked around them trying to see, just once, trying to hear._

_“Wait. Wait! Sherlock!”_

_The door slammed shut._

 

||

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quotes from "Cheryl" belong to Cheryl Strayed, and come from her anthology of writing at The Rumpus, _[Tiny, Beautiful Things](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13152194-tiny-beautiful-things)_. Get thee to a bookshop and/or Amazon and read it now. Thanks for reading, gang. As always, comments, feedback, and constructive criticism are very much welcome :)

**Author's Note:**

> This story is almost entirely from a (rare, for me) Molly POV. As an INTJ, tech-minded person, I am usually drawn to Sherlock's "world = data" perspective. I hope I'm not horrifically our of practice.
> 
> As always, comments, thoughts, favorite lines, feedback—basically all manner of constructive criticism are not only welcome, but openly encouraged :)


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